The first pre-release of Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring is now available. This alpha concentrates on updating to the major desktop components of the distribution, including KDE 4.2 Beta 2, GNOME 2.25.2, Xfce 4.6 Beta 2, X.org server 1.5, and kernel 2.6.28 rc8. It is also the first distribution to introduce the major new Tcl/Tk release, 8.6. The alpha is available only in the DVD Free edition with a traditional installer and no proprietary applications; future pre-releases will add the live CD One edition with proprietary drivers. Please help test this first pre-release and report bugs to Mandriva.

I'm running KDE3 under Mandriva 2009.0 on one of my two main machines, and finally have almost everything running right (problems with sound remain).

I never could manage to configure mouse buttons under KDE4, and wasted lots of time trying to get it to work. In particular, I never could get mouse-buttons-in-root-window to work correctly: ever since OL(V)WM on a SPARC2 fifteen years ago, I've expected to be able to get application-menu and windowlist-menu by clicking on the root window. Frankly, KDE3 has had the most friendly/configurable menu setup I've encountered anywhere, but I can't figure out how to get this to work under 2009.0's KDE4.

And this is a showstopper for me: I do highly detailed graphics work, and usually use virtual 3200x2560 on a physical 1920x1200 monitor, and having to find the "MENU" button somewhere in a corner is painful.